KDE and AI, and you, and me : linux

[-] Feyd@programming.dev 31 points 4 days ago

He can give 13 clearly articulated and factual reasons not to use LLMs and 1 nebulous opinion-based reason to use them yet gives them equal weight on the scale 🤔

One would think the following would be reason for a project such as KDE to ban them outright at least until the dust settles.

The license of source code they produce is legally unclear.

[-] SigHunter@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

literally the next sentence after the reasons, he calls LLMs "bad stuff". That does not sound like "equal weight on the scale" to me.

So yeah, bad stuff. I completely understand why a lot of people have problems with LLMs. I have these concerns as well.

I agree that the license issue should be enough to not touch anything generated by AI, to not taint the codebase

[-] Feyd@programming.dev 5 points 3 days ago

Did you stop reading there? Here is your quote + the next paragraph

So yeah, bad stuff. I completely understand why a lot of people have problems with LLMs. I have these concerns as well.

I also understand why a lot of experts in their field really like LLMs. These are very powerful and sophisticated tools. Capable people with decades of experience can successfully automate away a lot of tedious work, and still end up with a final product identical to what they would have done by hand.

I don't think that conclusion is even accurate and it's certainly the subject of much debate. He then crunches all of both negative and positive into a 5 bullet list that makes it look much more balanced:

Very powerful
Genuinely useful for various things
Dangerous, de-skilling, and/or addictive in the wrong hands
Full of really bad externalities
Broadly available worldwide at effectively zero cost

You're apparently reading it differently but it looks to me like half the article is trying to funnel into justifying making this a difficult decision after making the case for it really not to be up front. Why do that?

[-] SigHunter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 3 days ago

I see, yes you are probably right

[-] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 22 points 4 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Earlier I already noticed OP glossing over nuance when commenting about this.

Reading the blog linked here I really don't see any issue, esp. not of the "drunk with power" kind which seems to be a go-to for certain people as soon as something icky comes up.
Being "leader" of an OSS project is not fun. It's like herding cats. And the money probably isn't so hot either.
Your skepticism rocks, but please attack actual rich assholes instead.

AFAICS so far, KDE likes to discuss things even more than other OSS projects, including public brainstorming.

I hope they come to a good policy against AI, which is problematic not only from a developer's POV.
So far KDE still seem to be in the brainstorming phase though.

To round off, some key parts (which I fear will get misquoted/overblown) from this very article:

Everyone agreed it (AI slop) was a problem, and that we don’t want that crap.
There was less certainty about the best way to handle it socially.
Several wished for an official policy so we didn’t all have to figure it out on our own. I proposed a set of draft guidelines making it quite clear that slop merge requests are unwanted, and can be ignored or closed. It received a generally positive reception.
Another KDE developer requested that we workshop it somewhere more modern and capable.
I got busy and didn’t do so.
Several weeks later, various people on the internet discovered that a talk proposing “a lovable, sovereign, AI-native KDE” had been accepted at Akademy 2026 and created drama around it. [ Already then Nate replied that this was just one speaker of many and in no way representative of KDE as a whole ]
Akademy happened, and the talk was given to what I’m told was a fairly chilly reception. The next day, a workshop was held about the topic, also receiving a chilly reception.
Realizing this topic was not going away, later that day I re-opened a second draft of my LLM guidelines on invent.kde.org. KDE contributors began to discuss the draft proposal.
Two people unknown to any KDE contributors appeared and began fighting with one another about the broader topic of the morality of AI, not the proposed guidelines.
One of those people exposed the other person’s odious Twitter posts in an effort to discredit them.
Later, the identity of the doxxed exposed person was verified, and they were also banned for their conduct outside of KDE being so unacceptable that people inside KDE did not want to associate with them.
Someone else outside of KDE set up https://.com in an attempt to pressure KDE into banning LLMs. A bunch of people signed onto it, almost none of whom are known KDE contributors (I see one person I know in there).
The topic was picked up on social media and the press with… varying levels of accuracy.
The draft proposal was removed and the whole topic hidden.

It wasn't my intention to leave anything important out here.

edit:

But I was in a hurry when I wrote this.
I wanted to include/quote this post where Nate Graham states that simply forbidding AI-assisted contributions is no good because you cannot be 100% sure of any code not having been written with the help of AI.
Therefore such a roundabout rule makes no sense; instead one should ban the use of slop.
I am not a developer so I have to takes his word, but this makes a lot of sense to me.

The OP of that thread (who seems to be similarly inflamed as the OP of this one) then replied:

Even a policy that can’t be enforced very well is better than none. We are still making an ethical stand and we can ban obvious usage of the technology.

ngraham replied:

I disagree. Policies that can’t be enforced breed disrespect for the rules.

And once again I find myself agreeing.

That said, developers (and project leaders) should never forget the overall threat of AI, which goes well beyond software development. Like fucking our environment even more, and the people that live in it.

Whether KDE is willing to take such a political stance remains to be seen I guess? IDK what their track record is there.

I have since seen the proposal of a KDE AI policy - and no thanks to the "Nate Graham is bad" party in this thread. My takeaway:

I personally believe that being against AI goes beyond just code. It's ethical, political, whatever you want to call it. AI sucks, quite literally, the life out of people and the ground they're living on.
Unfortunately most FOSS projects concentrate more on code quality etc. in their AI policies, not on these overarching issues.
KDE seems to be a little late to the party wrt AI policies written out
Their proposal is just that atm and personally I applaude the transparent decision making process
There are too many people who are understandably outraged about the whole issue, but go about opposing it in a bad way, distorting or obfuscating facts in favor of a more dramatic good vs bad narrative - as seen right here
In the extreme this becomes indistinguishable from trolling. It's totally understandable that blog or repo owners shut hard-to-moderate comment sections down. If you're serious about this topic and having a nuanced discussion about it, there are places to do this; forums, for example.

[-] ikidd@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago

OP is pitchforking hard on this topic all the time. Nuance is non-existent. They're causing a lot of damage to the community here, IMO.

[-] Eldritch@piefed.world 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Yes OP has been daily Doom posting for the last month or so. I daily drive plasma. And have been keeping an eye on things. But I have not seen anything unreasonable or concerning. I find Brody Robertson has a decent insight into some of these things and explains himself relatively well on these topics.

It's undeniable that AI has been trained unethically. And certain instances are being deployed unethically. Similar could be said for certain vaccines. We didn't ban use of them however. Unfortunately the cat is out of the bag when it comes to ethical training. AI is now a tool and it is widespread regardless of whether or not we like it. The best we can hope to do is to push for accountability going forward. Supporting everyone. And punishing those who act unethically.

People need to make the connection that the problem with AI replacing people. Isn't ai. It's that wealthy capitalists are trying to cut people off from a means of supporting themselves. I.E the problem is capitalism. The problem is always capitalism. The problem has always been capitalism and the system that came before. If we provided proper social safety nets and social support for everyone in society. No one would care if AI replaced them at some menial soul-sucking job. If they could live and pursue their passions instead they would all be glad to.

[-] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Yes OP has been daily Doom posting for the last month or so.

I've posted about the AI policy of KDE and two follow-ups as the situation developed over the past 4 days, and am unlikely to post anything further on KDE until a new development occurs, which I anticipate will be a while.

I have previously posted here once about Xfce using AI in their Wayland compositor, and about Debian adopting a permissive AI policy when the outcome of that vote occured.

[-] lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 2 days ago

No one would care if AI replaced them at some menial soul-sucking job. If they could live and pursue their passions instead they would all be glad to.

If the cost was still the destruction of the environment and the genocide of foreign children, we'd have nowhere left to follow our passions in (worse if they are environment-related arts) nor people to teach or pass it down to.

AI is not just about the implementation. There's entire ethics behind it. As a technology, its entire purpose, its only purpose, is to replace humans, and it has to be understood in that capacity.

[-] Eldritch@piefed.world 2 points 2 days ago

AI can be implemented ethically. AI can be done without destruction of the environment etc. Who cares if AI replaces people as long as we take care of the people.

Capitalism/authoritarianism is what destroys the environment and causes war and genocide. AI can never take away your passions or hinder your ability to pass them on.

If we outlaw generative AI tomorrow, nothing will change. Because the problem will remain untouched. It was never AI. But oligarchs leeching and exploiting society as always.

[-] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

AI can be implemented ethically.

Potentially, yes. Currently this does not exist.

AI can be done without destruction of the environment

The AI policy proposed did not restrict AI usage to non-destructive self-hosted models.

Who cares if AI replaces people as long as we take care of the people.

The people who are most impacted by the negative externalities of AI are not taken care of. The people losing their jobs are also not taken care of. That is why people care so much. It's not viable to handwave away the negatives AI are causing in the here and now with the assurance that in some far off day we'll live in a post-capitalist world where the negatives won't matter.

[-] Eldritch@piefed.world 2 points 2 days ago

Currently this does not exist.

False. There are a number of models trained on data they were explicitly given permission to train on. Are these the models they're using? Well I know as much as you, which is to say I don't know. Though I think we'd probably agree they aren't largely. But aren't != can't.

The AI policy did not restrict AI usage to non-destructive self-hosted models.

Brody's videos that I linked go into this rationally and reasonably.

These are unpaid volunteer developers.
With what tools and funds will they police this?
The Black Arts of control C control V are also widely known. Better that the code be attributable and traceable than not.

There's no reasonable way they can actually ban this. And they don't have the time or money to police it. The only real solution is to just shut the projects down at this point. Is that what you're aiming for?

The people who are most impacted by the negative externalities of AI are not taken care of. The people losing their jobs are also not taken care of. That is why people care so much. It's not viable to handwave away the negatives AI are causing in the here and now with the assurance that in some far off day we'll live in utopia where the negatives won't matter.

No one is hand waving away the negative impacts. You are simply misattributing them to artificial intelligence and not wealthy authoritarians seeking to profit. By all means, fuck zuck, musk, altman, etc and their companies. They've always been and always will be destructive in every way possible. AI or not.

[-] A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Not that I'm agreeing with OP and their ilk, but imo "ethical" must include broader environmental and societal and geopolitical impact.

You do not address this.

But afaik LLMs that are ethical in this respect as well, also exist. Although maybe they aren't "Large".

[-] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

False. There are a number of models trained on data they were explicitly given permission to train on.

So far from what I've seen when I investigated self-labeled ethical models, I found that they weren't actually trained ethically, and not on code that is compatible with GPL or code that doesn't need to be attributed. (if you can find one that has proven otherwise, I'd be open to taking a look at it).

That said, I don't think there would have been as much push back if the KDE proposal had explicitly limited AI use to self-hosted models.

There’s no reasonable way they can actually ban this. And they don’t have the time or money to police it.

According to the KDE devs, the proposal was intended to allow them to easily reject clearly slop PRs. A policy that limits AI use to self-hosted models would have achieved that goal just as well as one that allows any model, and would essentially be an honor system, which I suspect most contributors would be willing to follow (obviously not all, and there is nothing stopping a contributor from lying that their corporate AI code was generated on a local LLM, but then again, there are also rules asking contributors to not knowingly submit copyrighted code from proprietary software, which is also an honor system).

You are simply misattributing them to artificial intelligence and not wealthy authoritarians seeking to profit. By all means, fuck zuck, musk, altman, etc and their companies. They’ve always been and always will be destructive in every way possible. AI or not.

To be honest, I'm struggling to understand why you would be against a policy that at least attempts to limit the benefit/gain to those wealthy authoritarians. A policy that did so would not require any further resources from the dev team compared to the one they attempted to implement, it would basically just be an official request to contributors to not use the explicitly fascist owned tools that are most contributing to global warming and our subjugation.

[-] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

The way Nate is framing the original intent of the proposal, that KDE was swamped with AI slop and they just needed a quick policy that would allow them to comfortably reject it, doesn't seem quite accurate. If that was all they needed, it seems like it would've been quite easily to propose an ad-hoc policy of allowing maintainers to reject suspected AI slop PRs at will, which would solve the immediate problem while allowing them to gather more feedback on a 'proper' policy. Adding a provision to not require any AI disclosure doesn't help with the stated goal of just wanting a way to easily reject slop.

I've read the positions of some of the developers involved in the proposal thread on other platforms, and most have made it very clear that they are pro-AI (I do not include Nate among them, as he has stated he actually dislikes AI and doesn't use it). Among that group, the concerns about AI ethics and their use are, ultimately, of secondary concern over the prospect of increased productivity and time savings. That inclination is what resulted in so little credence given to the people raising concerns against it in the proposal thread (it was clear that the concept of not accepting AI code, or even just limiting it to self-hosted models, was not on the table from the outset).

Nate is clearly distressed from the negative reaction the proposal has caused, and I can sympathize with that. However, from what I've read of his responses on his linked blog, IMHO it is mostly damage control, and still isn't addressing the main concerns people had about the original policy proposal. When people point out the copyright, environmental, and ethical issues, Nate will acknowledge those, but insists that the original proposal, by virtue of it allowing them to quickly reject obvious AI code, would've been an improvement (despite it also giving the provision that AI use didn't have to be disclosed, essentially meaning that those skillful enough to make it not obvious will still be perpetuating the ethical, environmental, and copyright issues, but just in the dark without anyone knowing the severity).

In the linked blog post, many of the comments are saying that KDE effectively closed down most avenues to provide feedback on the proposal, thus leaving them with essentially the only option of making the KDE For People open letter, as otherwise it appeared that any public dissent against a permissive AI policy was ultimately going to be dismissed as the Pro-AI group decided on a policy behind closed doors.

Their justification for planning to make it a closed door decision was two people in the proposal thread, both of which easily could've been removed from the thread, or the thread closed to developers only, and their discussion could've continued without any difficulty. I personally don't believe their justification, as it clearly seems like it was closed and ultimately made hidden to avoid the public relations fallout the main discussion was having for being so dismissal of the AI concerns brought up.

I invite anyone curious to read the blog and the comments below, and come to their own conclusion. (Be sure to click 'old comments' on that blog, as most are now hidden behind that).

[-] esc@piefed.social -4 points 4 days ago

KDE right now has a very reasonable position, but of course being utilitarian and reasonable wouldn't be ever enough for purists that will be throwing shit on the project regardless of what policy will be accepted in the end (OP is already doing it, some other people on fedi as well).

[-] PokerChips@programming.dev 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

By your account I guess Cheaters in college should have used the defense of professors that caught them as "purists" ... Get the FO of here with that.

[-] esc@piefed.social 2 points 3 days ago

You misunderstood your relationship with kde, they aren't your student, nor they are accountable or obligated to you in any way. This purity testing thing is dumb and achieves nothing but drama.

[-] rimu@piefed.social 14 points 4 days ago

Attempts to have your cake and eat it too are always going to be pretty fraught when it's a moral / ethical issue. If you try to compromise then no one is happy except the opportunists who see it as a chance to push for further changes in their direction.

Several weeks ago, a KDE developer started a mailing list thread asking about how we should handle the flood of AI slop merge requests. Everyone agreed it was a problem, and that we don’t want that crap.

That bit of context was certainly left out of the story when I first heard it and had I known that I would have read the proposed policy more charitably.

As an aside - this is the problem with having mailing lists and chatrooms - they are not on the web so it's impossible to link to the original source / context and this provides an opening for people who want to stir up some shit. I use Matrix a lot less these days, for that reason.

[-] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 15 points 4 days ago

As an aside - this is the problem with having mailing lists and chatrooms - they are not on the web so it's impossible to link to the original source / context

For making them accessible, the conversation in mailing lists is usually archived on the web:

https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-devel/2026-September/thread.html

[-] dubs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 days ago

KDE mailing lists have archives that you can read online

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev -3 points 4 days ago

Seriously, mailing list are last century crap that should be done away with.

[-] zelahdieliekeis@piefed.blahaj.zone 16 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

"various people on the internet"

"Two people unknown to any KDE contributors"

"Someone else outside of KDE"

"A bunch of people [...] almost none of whom are known KDE contributors"

"A bunch of people mostly outside of KDE"

Geez, can you condescend your users any harder? Or, like me, people who want to continue recommending your shit to noobs?

[-] tatterdemalion@programming.dev 10 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

It was clear he was referring to anyone involving themselves unnecessarily in the business of maintainers trying to create a policy. This tends to happen whenever maintainers discuss things openly.

It didn't seem condescending to me. You have to accept that non-contributors simply don't get as much weight as contributors in this kind of discussion. So when a lead maintainer sees non-contributors starting debates and criticizing the project when they don't have their facts straight and it really wasn't any of their business to begin with, they have a right to call them out.

[-] zelahdieliekeis@piefed.blahaj.zone 11 points 4 days ago

Ok, but how can it be called unnecessary involvement when it's simply public comment, for which an avenue was provided? What is "the business of maintainers" only? Of course maintainers get more say... that does not mean everyone else who has a say should shut up if they don't like it. If all of the public feedback was constructive towards the proposal without such severe disagreement on the basis, surely the author would welcome it. When popular disagreements like this come up it would be nice to have the crux of it addressed without being strawmanned to answer for the actions of some hooligan of the day.

[-] tatterdemalion@programming.dev 9 points 4 days ago

The main point of OP is that this was a misunderstanding that turned into an overreaction. It sounds like there was never any confusion among the maintainers that they were trying to create a policy to prevent LLM slop PRs and reduce maintenance burden. Somehow non-maintainers derailed the discussion into an anti-AI tirade that was completely unproductive.

So basically: yes people should shut up if they don't have anything productive to add to the discussion.

[-] SigHunter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I did not like that condescending wording either, as I was also considering signing this "KDE for People" petition yesterday. (but I didn't, because I'm not important, not a developer or anything)

I guess he just wanted to make clear, that KDE does not yet have an official stance, and those movements (the akademy talk and KDE for People) are not official kde projects/opinions

[-] mmmm@sopuli.xyz 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Since his rise to power within the project (kind of around the 5 launch) I felt like Nate's vibe was more to cater to the suits than anything else so I don't find this surprising. I just hope common sense prevails and he can see he's fucking it up.

[-] lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 days ago

Dear god the condescending tone. The passive-aggressive edit to the statement so that it still says the Nazi was "doxxed". The inability neither apologize nor correct their bad behaviour (the original reporter is IIRC still banned). The between-the-lines insistence on "please be kind (to centrists and nazis)". The insistence that making decisions on AI usage does not involve ethics.

Reminds me of the times when Fedora was exclusionary and racist to South Americans (dunno if they still are, lost them long ago).

KDE went to the trash like, woosh. This fast.

[-] majster@lemmy.zip 5 points 4 days ago

How about extending some benefit of doubt to project like KDE? It has an excellent track record which can't be said for the likes like: Ubuntu, RedHat, Omarchy (duh), Mozilla, even Linux with GPLv2 vs GPLv3

[-] Feyd@programming.dev 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Not speaking up when projects look like they could be about to make a mistep would just result in them not knowing that/how much people care? Why should people be silent if there is a chance to divert mistakes?

[-] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 days ago

Yeah that's kind of where I'm at. KDE has been pretty right-on for as long as I can recall, and it looks like at the moment they're just discussing AI broadly, which I personally don't think is an unreasonable thing to do, but even that's enough to get everyone riled up at the moment. Obviously if they actually do something sketchy like adding AI slop into Plasma then I'll revise my opinion, but it doesn't look to me like they've done anything especially egregious so far.

[-] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

If you didn't get a chance to see the original policy proposal thread that started the controversy, you can still read it here.

[-] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 days ago

Xfce and Debian have long track records as well, yet both have adopted permissive AI policies.

[-] majster@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 days ago

And has the quality dropped? I agree that this increases the likelihood of bad code/docs etc. and that developers will need greater self-control. But I think the conversation should try to frame the question similarly as C memory safety. Yes its dangerous but despite the possibility of bugs we have lots of good software written in it.

Of course one can object on more fundamental grounds...there then can be little conversations, instead we have persuasion.

[-] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

There are serious concerns beyond pure code quality.

::: spoiler The concerns

Simply using an AI that's run on a corporate data centers encourages the construction of yet more data centers, with all of the environmental/climate negatives they bring, as well as local harms they induce on the people living near them, such as increased electricity rates.
Using corporate AI directly helps the financial situations of those giant corporations (by boosting usage/user numbers, they are able to attract more investment capital), most of which are ran by right-wing CEOs who are more than willing to collaborate with and fund fascist governments to ensure that they are not regulated in search of maximum profits. Some of these companies, such as Nvidia, Palantir and Oracle, genuinely appear to be seeking to use these tools for what would previously be considered crackpot conspiracy theory levels of public control and surveillance.
All currently existing LLMs are unethically trained on copyrighted code that is incompatible with GPL licensed projects. LLMs have a 3 to 10% chance to unknowingly reproduce the copyrighted code perfectly, introducing legal plagiarism into an open-source project, which could easily open up the developers to being sued in the future if companies scanned open source repos for copyright violations.
Many courts are ruling that LLM generated code cannot be copyrighted at all, meaning that it also cannot be legally made GPL, losing the protections from corporate exploration the GPL normally grants. https://fsfe.org/news/2026/news-20260825-01.html
It is not clear if LLMs can be "just a tool".

[-] ikidd@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 days ago

Yah, the last is way too much to ask of places like Lemmy, that's for sure.